Common Sense: YARNELL

Born with a plastic spoon in her mouth, Carolyn Yarnell (then known as Baby Girl) was abandoned by her mother in Los Angeles when she was 10 days old. After an unusual childhood in the Sierras, Ms. Yarnell studied music composition at the San Francisco Conservatory with John Adams, Eleanor Armer and Andrew Imbrie, and at Yale where her teachers included Druckman, Bresnick, Maw, and Rzewski. "If this young composer continues to create music of this quality, she will be a milestone in musical history" proclaimed the San Francisco Advocate after the performance of her earliest orchestral work, First Music in 1984, at Davies Hall. Avoiding charges of Heresy, Yarnell continues to create art under interesting circumstances. Never having held a conventional job, Yarnell rather has hewed an existence from commissions, prestigious awards and fellowships, piano students, computer engraving, champion friends (Thanks Candice! Thanks Eric! And a big special thank you to Dan and Belinda!), original painting sales, film scores, and good fortune.

Contact her at CarolynYarnell.com.

Sage from Common Sense

"Sage has a lot of different meanings. Sage is the color bluish, grayish green. It is a fragrance of fields and open sky. Sage is a spice used in cooking and a herb used for purification of the living environment. It can mean grave; solemn. Sage reminds me of a landscape in the west hundreds of years ago, it reminds me of my grandmother and her Indian ancestors. It is one who possesses the quality of wisdom. Just as the word has multiple meanings, the music I have called "Sage" has multiple layers and shifting moods. Sage is dedicated to my friend Deniz Ulben Hughes."

More Spirit than Matter
from The Shock of the Old

"More Spirit than Matter... is a set of 3 pieces (only movements I and III are on this disc due to time constraints) which reflect early music from a contemporary vantage point.

I have tried to recollect how this piece came to be called More Spirit than Matter.... In retrospect, the title has come to mean more than previously imagined. Five months after the premiere in 1996, John Stephen Lobacz, to whom the piece is dedicated, was suddenly removed from this material world. Since his death, I have written other pieces dedicated to him, but this one will always remain special, because it was written when we were happy together in love.

More Spirit than Matter...
not so much seen, as felt
tone, melody, line, chaconne
more breath than bone"

dan BECKER